Australian Government Security Vetting Agency

The Defence Security Authority (DSA) leads Defence's protective security efforts, and sets Defence protective security policy-including authoring its primary source of protective security policy, the Defence Security Manual; further it assists the Secretary, Chief of the Defence Force, Group Heads and Service Chiefs to manage security risk; and under the auspices of the Australian Government Security Vetting Agency undertakes security clearance vetting for the whole-of-government; and finally DSA monitors Defence's security performance.
The Defence Security Authority is part of the department and is not created under a separate statute.